The Design Of Cassava Planter Cutting Components

Cassava, potatoes and sweet potatoes are the world’s three major potato crops. Cassava grown widely in tropics and subtropics is not only the staple diet of many countries, but also an important energy resource. In recent years cultivation of cassava in Guangxi and Hainan has expanded rapidly. With the growing farm labor costs and industrial demand for cassava, mechanized planting is imminent to fill gaps of artificial cultivation. And cassava cultivation mechanization can enhance hardening productivity and economize cost while ensuring quality. Among all process, cutting is the key point and also the best indicator to judge whether the design of cassava combine planter is satisfying, the quality of which can affect the damage rate of cassava seed bud and then the survival rate of seedlings.This paper designs a new cassava seedmeter, combined shortcomings of artificial cultivation with the structure and work characteristics of cassava combine planter at home and abroad.This paper determines the construction form and operating principle of the cassava seedmeter by comparing different cutting form. Then the engine model having been tested for many times is built based on four elements including a seedmeter, an opener, a fertilizer and a covering device, after analyzing mechanical parameters of cassava stalk and feasibility of the cassava seedmeter. The main content of this article are as follows:First, the article has carried on the detailed theoretical analysis to the cassava seedmeter’s structure principle and the state of motion, identifying the structure of cassava seedmeter, and has determined the cassava mechanical characteristics factors and various parts factors that affect the cutting performance.Second, this article studies effects of turning radius of the elastic poke finger on cutting length, and then calculates the number range of turning radius of the elastic rubber ring. Only in this range, cutting length can meet requirements of agricultural norm. This paper also measures cassava mechanical characteristics parameters by experiments.Third, using the LS-DYNA software, the article establishes mathematical models of the cassava seedmeter and cassava stalks, carries on the movement simulation analysis under the premise of setting the cassava parameters and parting tool parameters. Through analyzing equivalent stress distribution of cassava stalks at different time, this article determines the impacts of moving-blade’s cutting speed on cutting process.Fourth, this paper builds a cassava planter on the basis of cutting components and other parts, which then being carried on the field excavation performance test. This test takes damage rate of seed as a key indicator to measure performance, results of which shows that the cutting form and structure is reasonable and brings higher working efficiency and greater cutting quality.This article develops a successful cassava seedmeter with simple structure and high safety, which can match the speed of planter to make adjustment of rows easier. Its innovation mainly displays in: the seedmeter uses both moving blade and fixed blade to decrease stalks damage from knife edge; it adopts elastic poke finger as gripping delivery mechanism to reduce damage rate of buds; the knife and elastic poke finger can run in the same step to lower missing seed rate.